Are Mentors Beneficial?: Mentors' Performance And Attributes As Predictors Of Retention For Marine Officers Commissioned From NROTC Programs
Abstract
The Marine Corps' current manpower system focuses on producing quantity over quality and fails to encourage those it wants and needs to keep to increase the diversity and longevity of its officer corps. A renewed emphasis has been placed on understanding what factors may affect an officers decision to remain serving. Literature suggests that a mentoring relationship may have a positive effect on retention. In this study, we first explore the predictive power of socio-demographic variables on retention, updating findings from previous studies. Multivariate analysis findings confirm the previous findings that married officers with dependent children are more likely to choose to retain throughout measured retention milestones. Furthermore, the U.S. Naval Academy (USNA) continues to show the highest retention rates among other commissioning sources. We then focus on the officers commissioned from a Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps (NROTC) program to examine how a mentors (Marine Officer Instructor) performance and shared attributes with a mentee (midshipman) predict retention behavior for the mentee at the 5- and 7-year milestones. Our findings do not definitively indicate that a mentors' performance or having shared attributes with a mentee are significant predictive factors for a mentees retention decisions, suggesting that additional work on the mentor-mentee relationship and its effect on retention is warranted.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 01, 2021
- Accession Number
- AD1150657
Entities
People
- Megan E. Kilber
- Shannon A. Kelly
Organizations
- Naval Postgraduate School